Archive for the tag “slovenia”

Each day social media is full of posts about the rubbish and mess that abounds in Merton and other localities. I don’t seek these posts they are there in their droves . Just search for #muckymerton and see what emerges.

The pattern is too familiar. Fewer collections of any type, rubbish dumped at bins , rubbish just dumped. End result is a total mess and more rats. I have seen more rats this year 2018 than in the combined 20+ years I have been living in the area. This is not even mentioning the mess foxes make . Take a walk through any Merton area around midnight to 5 am and the foxes are having a party. They are breeding well and in our area Monday night is festival night for them. Folks put their rubbish out for a Tuesday collection and the foxes firstly collect it then spread it over whole streets. We must accept that we are partially at fault here as asked to put rubbish out by 6 am . And everyone loves getting up at 6 am to do this.

Merton has been trialling things that are certainly unconventional. In the face of ever increasing mess and litter in some areas and parks they are removing waste bins and replacing them with , well, nothing.

I am no refuse disposal expert but then clearly neither are the council. But what I do see is other cities and towns in Europe that are devoid of rubbish and clean despite having far more citizens and visitors. Earlier this year I wrote a post on Ljubljana in Slovenia where underground rubbish and recycling bins provide an excellent solution.

The collection is also simpler with workers not having to handle any of the lovely rubbish and recycling.

What prompted me to write this article today is Berlin. This is summer . Tourist peak season. Temperatures around 34c . Yet walking to some business appointments there is no rubbish. Bins are either empty or certainly not full. Containers like small skips allow rubbish and recycling to be collected. Maybe the mentality is better too. Less fly tipping and discarding aimlessly of rubbish. Simply Berlin is clean. Whatever systems are used and funded Merton and other councils could do worse than learning about and adopting .

Following my post on Ljubljana I learned that such underground recycling and rubbish collection facilities are available in parts of Southern Spain and Northern England. This is not futuristic thinking its plain common sense and needs funding and adoption.

To me the way things are going in Merton, watching rats run free next to roads , rubbish piled up and bins overflowing, we have a system that is not working and in many regards is not unlike London in the 1700’s. Whoever decides , funds and is accountable is failing the residents. The better step is adoption of change , not reducing collections . Look for alternative options. Otherwise, I can see legal challenges from residents who pay their council taxes. We are traveling right now in the wrong direction.

Taking a walk around Merton most days, especially on bin day, you see rubbish everywhere. Rubbish left behind, rubbish not collected and rubbish strewn from bags broken open by the hordes of neighbourhood urban foxes. A lot of it is preventable by sensible management of rubbish, for example do not leave rubbish bas out overnight, but some is not preventable.

Recycling and bin collection for the last centre a weekly thing, now is becoming fortnightly or potentially not at all. Rubbish also need not be rubbish. The Welsh Council in Brycir area near Caernavon do not permit rubbish, all waste gets recycled under some guise, providing around 4-6 different coloured wheelie bins.

Ljubljana is the capital city in Slovenia and a beautiful city and country.

Slovenia however is not associated with being the paradigm shift in recycling and rubbish collection. Anyone walking through the city would see any number of beautiful sights and monuments. The graffiti art is unique. What might look almost irrelevant are a number of bins in a line fixed to the street. These are the recycling bins and rubbish bins divided up in a normal manner. What is clever is that these are not small bins that get full in hours or days, but in fact they lead to underground “bins” which are then emptied or collected by large recycling vehicles. The rubbish is thus neither in sight nor in smell. This is a wonderfully simple concept and surely replicable. No need for rubbish bags lining streets , minimising the amount of rubbish decorating pavements and front gardens. Some initial cost surely , but why should not UK councils also consider this clever option. So how does it work?

Underground collection units are used in the centre of Ljubljana to replace common waste bins and thus unburden public areas and make the city look nicer. Glass, packaging and paper can be deposited in underground collection units by anybody, while you need the relevant card to deposit biological waste.The first underground collection units were installed in 2008 and there are currently 41 of such collection units in Ljubljana (3 not yet activated). The aim is to ensure that the maximum distance of any user from the unit is 150 metres. They are simple to use.

Place the card on the scanner next to the collection unit lid.

Once the scanner recognises the card, the lid of the underground collection unit automatically opens.

Drop the garbage bag into the opening and manually close the lid.

If you have several garbage bags, repeat the procedure. The maximum allowed volume of a bag is 40 litres.

Slovenia is less than 2.5 hours away whether you fly to Ljubljana or Zagreb. Zagreb has more flights and Ljubljana airport is nearer of course, however it means an unfortunate visitation to Stansted.

The drive from Zagreb is around 90 minutes and is painless, but one needs to remember to stop at a services and purchase the Vignette, a kind of road tax that can be bought weekly up to annually. tolls.eu/slovenia

A weekly Vignette is 15 euros. The country is essentially unspoiled and will not remain so for much longer, indeed only the lack of direct flights to Ljubljana exerts some control over this. Visiting in May, the hotels are all full in the centre and some advance booking is essential.

For anyone who has travelled Europe , Ljubljana can be described as a cross between Prague and Amsterdam, without the crowds. There is a river through the city alongside most of the eating and drinking goes on. Food and drink is cheap and there is a certain Italian flavour to many of the restaurants, which are surprisingly cheap. A few curious things emerge like giving customers apples, we found them on the table in cafes and bars and also in our hotel. There are some building works going on in central Ljubljana but this does not really impact anyone visiting. Anyone from UK will be surprised at the cheapness of franks in the bars and also the great service from the bar staff.

Hiring a car is also cheap and means that in around an hour one can reach any of the borders with Italy, Hungary, Austria and Croatia. Slovenia also has a very small stretch of beach. Drive down any motorway, which are dual carriageways as we know them, and there are plentiful signs to castles and other amazing places. The Lippizaner horses can be seen, Predjama castle is a must and Lakes Bled ( a little touristy) and Bohinj need to be seen. A 30 minute boat ride on Lake Bohinj in an electric boat that is 62 years old is worth doing.

There are many different walks one can do, around lakes or just through countryside.

This is a country to visit for a long weekend or even a week. Walking through the city is easy and anyone wanting 10,000 steps a day will find it surprisingly easy. And I have not even mentioned the amazing street art in Metalkova in Ljubljana.

Ljubljana is Slovenia’s capital and largest city. It’s known for its university population and green spaces, including expansive Tivoli Park. The curving Ljubljanica River, lined by outdoor cafes, divides the city’s old town from its commercial hub. Ljubljana also has many museums, including the National Museum of Slovenia.

What however is less well known is the street art that covers walls in many parts of the city. Here is a selection of some of the variety you can see, all from the city centre. Some are works of art whilst some border almost on the graffiti border. Would you want a half eaten fox on the wall of your restaurant?

MLK seems to be wondering which bicycle he might use?

Cannot make up my mind if this half eaten fox is a good thing to see against the wall of a restaurant?

An unusual mixture of street art to observe whilst drinking coffee or beer

As a football fan I see plenty of occasions each game where the officials get it wrong and sometimes badly so. Having said that players and managers also are culpable of making errors plenty of times in any given game. I do however take a view that officials should be allowed to do their jobs with the expectation that they will not be perfect and certainly should be protected from on-pitch haranguing and demonstrations of anger on the pitch itself. At the recent Met Police v Kingstonian game at half time, immediately before which Met Police had scored direct from a corner, the officials were approached by the Kingstonian manager Tommy Williams clearly angry at some percieved error of judgement, and in a finger waving manner. We all in non-league should have respect for the officials and I personally cannot condone this behaviour. I am sure there are other views out there and it would be interesting to hear them.

Firstly please share this post with friends and colleagues. What I am about to describe is a worrying trend and one that I would not like to see expanding. A kind of “legal ” vigilante going under the euphemism of ” Environmental Enforcement”. OK. Picture the scenario. A short one hour visit to Wimbledon and returning to the train station and about to enter. What did I visualise?

I am appalled. There are three I will call them officers with the gentle demeanour of harsh traffic wardens crossed with prison wardens who are ticketing folks under the name of environmental enforcement. Their crimes? Seems throwing cigarette ends anywhere than some specific receptacle. Fixed penalty fines of 75£ or 80£. Those being questioned had a poor grasp of the English language. Apparently this is a criminal offence to throw cigarette ends away like this as one officer explained.
My views on this were heavily influenced by recent reports that police no longer routinely investigate burglaries. And around 10 yards away a homeless man was prostrate and sleeping and would have been a better beneficiary of their wise input and assistance. One might also argue that folks needing help such as this man might be better recipients of environmental protection than inadvertent or even deliberate throwing of cigarette ends on the ground outside a station . Am I right to be angry about this?

After a little research tonight it seems Merton Council have a zero tolerance to littering, or so they say. The wording from their website tells us this

“Due to the high number of pedestrians visiting the town centre, Wimbledon has the highest rate of cigarette litter in Merton with over 1,500 FPNs being issued since June. As well as taking a zero-tolerance approach to enforcement, the council works to educate residents and visitors to the borough about environmental crime and the likelihood that they will be fined £75 for littering”

What however is worrying is that there is no right of appeal against a fixed penalty notice. So we all understand the situation that littering is not a good thing and the majority of us would agree that we should do it. However there are limits. And those limits to me are exceeded by seeing in practice that people who were it seems unaware of this draconian zero tolerance to cigarette ends, and we are not talking about littering huge amounts of kebab shop waste or newspapers on the streets, but cigarette ends, are being fined what seems an excessive amount. Furthermore to see a homeless man prostrate, rather curiously by a gritting bin, and these environmental enforcement officers take no action in the 15 minutes that I observed them was to say the least disheartening. That ” society” , well the council , cares more extracting punitive fines than humane care, speaks volumes.

The next aspect that we need to address is the actual environmental enforcement officers. Their attire of a kind of jump suit more often associated with prison, with their waists surrounded by more equipment than many would need to climb Mount Everest or contain a whole ward of rioting patients in Broadmoor, seems excessive to say the least. Together with mounted CCTV on their uniforms. I am sure Neil Armstrong had less equipment when he set foot on the moon with Apollo 11 in july 1969.

Many or even most of these officers it seems are supplied by a company called Kingdom. A press release from March 2014 stated that the council’s own enforcement officers will work alongside the Kingdom enforcement team from the end of April as they go out and about around Merton to make sure the borough is kept litter-free. Kingdom’s team is led by ” experts with an ex-military and police background”. Quite why this is so necessary to deal with ordinary folks who have thrown cigarette ends on the ground is not so clear. They issue these fixed penalty notices to those breaking the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Where it however gets more interesting is that Merton Council has come under fire for reducing street cleaning in town centres on Sundays – while spending nearly £130,000 a year on four environment enforcement officers. So photographs published in March 2015 show far worse littering caused by the overflowing of these bins than I certainly visualised on the pavements of Wimbledon. In fact I saw nothing other than the poor homeless man. There is a lot of information provided by the government on how councils can issue FPNs and also how they should use the funds accrued.

The same site above lists the various offences for which FPNs can be given and it is immediately obvious that some of these are serious and should be punished in a punitive manner, however in the context cigarette ends must be at the lower if not lowest end of the spectrum.

graffiti
littering
fly-posting
nuisance parking (people selling or repairing cars on the road)
dog control offences
abandoned vehicles
leafleting without permission on land where leafleting is restricted (‘designated land’)
failing to nominate a key holder or give the council key holder details in an alarm notification area
failing to provide a waste carrier licence (for businesses transporting their own waste)
failing to provide a waste transfer note when moving non-hazardous waste

There is a world of difference between for example “littering” with an abandoned vehicle and a cigarette end. Yet the difference in fine amounts is surprisingly small. £200 for abandoning a car and £75 for abandoning a cigarette end. The money must also be put to specified uses.

So what I am left wondering is what training is given to these officers, what degree of latitude do they have in not administering a FPN, if they have any targets, and of course how much money is raised and exactly to what purpose is it put. There is clear guidance on publishing not only the enforcement strategy but also to how the money will be used.

So in my world there would be some degree of spectrum here on exactly what constitutes a littering offence and throwing a single cigarette end does not equate to toxic pollution of the planet. Maybe also these officers can not only look at the bigger picture, but as today adopt a more humane approach. To have allowed that homeless man to remain on the ground lying prostrate would not be their greatest achievement in their day. Littering does have context and we need to be careful not to be too literal and punitive. If Merton Council want and feel they should adopt a zero tolerance approach, then this should be reflected in not only this aspect but all aspects of their work. Finally what exactly are they doing with the money, that was not happening before? I have developed a zero tolerance approach to not knowing the answers to these reasonable questions.

I am just impressed by what a few lessons in GCSE photography have taught the 15 year old. Here you see the original photograph and what was created with about 20 minutes work. Soon she will be wanting paid commissions…and why not

Brentford came into this game on the back of a four game winning run and faced a physical Hull side with the menacing Steve Bruce prowling on the touchline. The simple reality were that Bees had a few chances in the first 10 minutes of which they should have taken at least one, but then the first half somewhat became an even game. The second half Hull upped the ante and made some decent substitutions and took the game away from Brentford with a combination of good technique and excellent finishing. David button would not reflect upon this game as his best for Brentford and the second Hull goal would usually not have happened with a spilling of the ball to the feel of the hull striker. hull however are an excellent side and move top of the championship after this victory and i would be unsurprised to see them there next May.

There was no shame in losing to the better side. The Brentford perfomance was good and the team are improving game by game. Do we have any concerns? Not really. Maybe the substitutions did not help last night. Taking Toumani off for me is never a good thing for whatever reason. KK runs a lot, has good positional ability but frankly lacks the technique for a good championship player and without being negative I can see him on his way to League 1-2 level in due course. Ryan woods looks younger each game but improves each game with immense workrate. Yennaris has settled, in my view surprisingly, at right back and also improves each game, but maybe still could elevate his general work rate. Some of his central defending was also excellent last night leading me to wonder if he might also be an option there.

Griffin Park under floodlights is something I will miss as there always is a special atmosphere and a midweek crowd on a dull and damp night of 9200 is excellent. Lastly it was good to see Sam Saunders back on the bench. He will play cameo roles one suspects but a good option to have.

Just to showcase three superb photos of very different topics that were not taken by myself. Enjoy. I wish I had the opportunity to do GCSE photography.

The simplicity of a Kit Kat against the sports pages of The Sunday Times. Red and white.

A cat seemingly wanting to eat an almond croissant.Cumberleylaude, a ‘gourmet cat’ with a love of fine dining, could join stage show CATS after discovery of lost TS Eliot poem. Is this the first audition for the role?